Invehertex – Hacia el Vórtice (Review)

Invehertex are a Chilean Black Metal band and this is their début album.

At 79 minutes in length, Invehertex don’t do things by halves it seems.

Alongside some ambient interludes, the band play raw, underground Black Metal that has a sprawling and ambitious attitude to blackened soundscapes.

Blasting, icy aggression is present and correct, alongside groovier riffs and atmospheric explorations; all wrapped in darkness and covered with malevolence.

Harsh screams are your guide to this blackened nightmare, occasionally aided by ominous and spectral cleans. These are buried in the distortion so as to provide only the faintest glimmer of hope to the listener, who is otherwise subsumed with grim blackness.

Featuring a cold and frosted recording that perfectly suits a band stylistically born out of the 90s era and then mangled by the corrupted mutations that have happened to the genre since then, Hacia el Vórtice is the kind of album that spreads and grows like a virulent plague. As soon as you press play you’re hooked, drawn into the gusting winds that soon transform into a veritable maelstrom, trapping you until the conclusion 79 minutes hence.

This is a bold album that is doubly impressive considering that this is the band’s first. If they sound this accomplished in the dark arts on merely their first release, what does the future hold, I wonder? Regardless, for the moment we have Hacia el Vórtice, and there’s a lot to explore here and to get to know over time.

I’m extremely impressed by this. If you’re a Black Metal fan then this is essential.